Category: Android Phone

With the shipment of 1st day orders of the Nexus 5X starting today, Google has made a few interesting posts on their various sites today.  First, as you saw earlier, you can now get a zero wait Project Fi invite to try the service out.  Second came the posting of the factory image for the Nexus 5X, codename “bullhead”.  Interesting, Google posted three images for the 5X, all based on Android Marshmallow.  The latest update is MDB08I.

For those who are unfamiliar, the factory images are the full Android images for Nexus devices that you can install on your device instead of waiting for the OTA update.  Generally speaking only developers should need to load these images but Google explains on the site how to install these on your Nexus devices if you chose to do so.

Over the course of the weekend, Netflix dropped an update for their Android app in the Google Play Store.  The new 3.15 version – for those keeping score at home – is primary a bug fix release while also bring full support for Android Marshmallow to the app.  Nothing super news worthy but what was worth a mention was a tease that Netflix put at the bottom of the release notes:  Call Netflix Help directly from the app.  While no indicator of timing was given in the notes, the idea of being able to get technical support directly from within the app is one that could help users quickly if they are having trouble.

Netflix for Android – Free (In-App Purchases) – Download Now

Last month during the Google event that saw the Nexus 5X and 6P announced, Google made several announcements around other services including Google Play Music.  While the big news was the upcoming family subscription service, the ability to send subscription gives was also very briefly mentioned.  That feature it appears has now gone live.

If you navigate to the Google Play Music app on your Android phone or tablet and open the hamburger menu, you will now see a “Send gift” option.  Tapping it will take you to the Google Play Music website where you can then place your gift subscription order.

Google Play Music – Free (in-app purchases) – Download Now

OnePlus has announced that on October 22nd they will be closing down and locking the OnePlus 2 invite program.  If you want to get on the invite list, now is the time to do it.  The company stated that the reason for the closure was to try to tackle the some 5 million invite holders that are out there.  As they say, “While we appreciate all your support and enthusiasm all things must come to an end eventually. And so, it is time for us to sunset the reservation list, and start fulfilling it.”

The news will come as good news for those who are on the reservation list and still haven’t had their device ship while those who have been thinking of getting the latest flagship from the company have been given a timeline on when they can jump in on the action.  The bottom line is if you aren’t on the list come October 22nd, you will have to get invited from an existing OnePlus 2 owner.  Those already on the list will stay on the list & your position will be locked after the 22nd.

YouTube Gaming for Android devices has been updated and while the update is a “.1” release, the feature set really makes it worthy of being a 2.0 version.  Nevertheless, the new 1.1.20.3 build for those keeping score at home, brings a huge number of updates to the broadcasting gaming platform.  The biggest news in this update is the support for live streaming of your mobile games from your Android devices.  If you are running a device with Android Lollipop or Android Marshmallow, you can now live stream or record your mobile games.  You host your stream with your device’s front facing camera and the app leverages your device’s microphone for audio.  Essentially this allows you to more easily share mobile games than ever before or frankly from any other game streaming platform.

YouTube Gaming – Free – Download Now

Google has dropped an update to the Google Keyboard app in the Google Play Store that should be a welcome update for users of Gesture Typing in the app.  The update brings significantly improved word accuracy & completion for those who use Gesture Type (swiping your finger across the keyboard to spell words instead of typing them) as well as those who do traditional typing on the keyboard.  The update is version – wait for it – 4.1.23043.2297020 for those keeping score at home and like to play Google Version Bingo.  The update hit the Play Store yesterday and if you are using Google Keyboard or have it installed on your Android phone or tablet, you should see the OTA update over the course of the next couple of days.

Google Keyboard for Android – Free – Download Now